Hell in a Handbasket: The $260 'Perfect' Pencil

I respect Faber-Castell, and their Grip Plus Ball is still one of my favorite ballpoints, but this is just ridiculous: Their Perfect Pencil rings in at an absurd 260 bones.

Yes, the fluted body is cool and probably feels great in the hand, but does it need to be made from "precious Californian cedar?" And do we scribes and scribblers require an onboard sharpener made from silver, platinum or Sterling silver plating?

Arguably the Perfect's target market may not be the indigent design blogger or industrial designer; it's probably aimed at Wall Street types who can thoughtlessly snap them in half when frustrated by the market.

Oh, almost forgot, the erasers are replaceable. Although if I dropped two and a half bills on a pencil, I'd never erase anything that came out of it.

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4 Comments

Where are all of the inflammatory comments on posts about luxury cars or shoes? Going off of the judgement statements in the editorial and comments section, we should all be wearing Toms and driving Volkswagons. But then I guess we would all have be self righteous design snobs.

This isn't about design or functionality, this is about salemanship. All of these things (except for the materials) can be found in previous incarnations of pencil design. None of this is really very original except making it out of materials that let you charge an outrageous cost and lessen the functionality by putting it as a status symbol, rather than a tool.

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